Real World Frontline Experience from My Maintenance and Reliability Career

A pulp mill was struggling with production throughput, and leadership was quick to blame poor maintenance planning and scheduling. At first glance, it seemed to add up—planned maintenance jobs weren’t getting completed, preventive maintenance compliance was falling, and craft workers were scrambling. Efficiency dropped, and so did production.

But digging deeper revealed a different story.

The real culprit wasn’t maintenance itself, but constant last-minute changes to the production schedule. Shifting demands forced the plant to repeatedly change equipment setups on the winder, causing maintenance teams to abandon scheduled work. The maintenance planning and scheduling process was solid — but unpredictable production shifts were undermining it.

This disconnect between production planning and maintenance operations was the root cause of repeated equipment failures and unplanned downtime.

If leadership had kept blaming maintenance, they would have misdiagnosed the problem and implemented solutions that never addressed the real issue.

By pausing to define the problem clearly and involving the right people, the mill was able to bring production and maintenance into alignment—and start improving reliability and throughput for real.

Here’s the bottom line: If you want to fix reliability issues, start by listening to frontline teams and analyzing real data — not just jumping to conclusions.

Reach out and schedule a discovery call so we can work together to identify the right problem to go after.